Zelenskiy Fields Queries on Trump as He Spends Day at Oyster Bar
Zelenskiy Fields Queries on Trump as He Spends Day at Oyster Bar
(Bloomberg) -- He kept the world waiting five months for a news conference, but when Volodymyr Zelenskiy finally got round to it, the Ukrainian television-actor-elected-president put on quite the show.
Picture the scene: a trendy food court in central Kyiv, 315 accredited journalists and a casually dressed 41-year-old president seated at the end of a wooden table, next to an oyster bar, fielding questions.
The format is almost as unusual as the setting: small groups of reporters are allotted different time slots. Things kicked off at breakfast and will last into the night. By early evening, he was being handed an award for the world’s longest-ever press conference on the basis he’d eclipsed Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of neighboring Belarus.
“It was the president who came up with this format,” said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, his deputy chief of staff.
It was a set-up that seemed straight out of the Vladimir Putin school of media interaction. The Russian president has a yearly call-in show where he answers questions for hours on end.
Our reporter, given a graveyard shift around dinner time, bumped into the star attraction as he headed to the bathroom. Would he last that long? He said he would, but may need some glucose -- and grabbed a juice.
Interest in Zelenskiy is off the charts -- U.S. network television and other international media hopped on a plane overnight to be at the event that was hastily arranged at the last minute. On arrival, Zelinskiy said: “Cool place, never been here before.”
He’s an unwitting participant in the impeachment saga that’s ensnared Donald Trump and was triggered by the now infamous phone conversation between the U.S. president and the novice leader. During that call in July, Zelenskiy told Trump he wanted more weapons from the U.S. to counter Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. Trump asked Zelenskiy to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
“There was no blackmail,” said Zelenskiy, in a white shirt with one button undone, no tie and hands clasped together. “It wasn’t a subject of our talk.”
Later he was asked whether he apologized to Angela Merkel. In the call, Zelenskiy agreed with Trump when the U.S. leader said “Germany does almost nothing for you” -- “all they do is talk.”
Zelenskiy said he spoke to Merkel on Wednesday and they were good. He said EU leaders understood why he said what he said.
Perhaps surprisingly, Trump was not the very first thing the Ukrainian president was asked about as the marathon session got underway.
For local media, there’s the fraught relationship with Russia, corruption at home and concern about Zelenskiy’s ties to a local billionaire who owns the TV station that hosted his hit sitcom, “Servant Of The People.” That’s the show where art imitated life: A high school history teacher wins the presidency almost by accident, much like Zelenskiy’s own surprising political journey.
Now in power, the shine has already come off, especially after the transcript of the July call showed Zelenskiy out of his depth and fawning over Trump. Some are questioning whether he’s really the reformer he sold himself as. On Thursday, he squabbled with some reporters, growing visibly irritated when quizzed by a journalist from a local magazine that’s been critical of him.
That didn’t stop him though. With the event already 11 hours in and running well behind schedule, Zelenskiy’s press secretary assured reporters that everyone would get their chance to speak to him -- even if that means staying beyond midnight.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kyev at dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, ;Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Andrew Langley, Michael Winfrey
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